Free Lilian's Story by Kate Grenville

as he could go with Gary and Kevin watching, and made a show of accepting his humility. But only for a minute , I said, and took as long as I could to unbuckle my satchel, take out the tile, and unwrap it.
    Where’d you get it, Lil? Rick asked while I let him hold it for a moment to feel its weight. Where, then? But I was full of triumph and would not tell. It is my secret , I crowed. Because I am braver than anyone, and know all the dangerous places. I watched Gary watching Rick, but Rick did not have anything to say, and he knew we were all watching. I am an explorer and a hero , I shouted, and I discover things. But before I had finished, Rick’s voice had gone shrill to drown me out and a dog began to bark behind palings as he shrieked, You ugly fatso, you ugly old maid, you make me sick. He was breathless when he had finished, and Andy was capering vaguely and trying to start up a chant: Old maid, old maid , but I knew what to say. Yes , I shrilled, and grabbed the tile back from Rick, I will be an old maid like Queen Elizabeth was an old maid, and Grace Darling. There was a silence in which we all heard Kevin snuffle up his surprise. Rick was loud but not quite convincing as he shouted in a strangled way, choking on dust in his throat, perhaps, You! You ain’t no queen! He spat and a gob of spit landed in a ball beside my shoe. It swayed, rolled, covered itself with dust. You ain’t no queen and you ain’t no hero. His voice was still thin in the sceptical sunlight. He had to go on trying to shout. You got no right , he tried, and grabbed at the tile. Not yours, anyhow! He jerked at the tile, but I was strong in my triumph, and knew that Gary and Kevin were watching, more aloof every moment as Rick’s voice grew reedier with frustration.
    When our struggle was over, the tile with the goat face lay on the tired dust between cauliflower stalks, its fragments already part of the rubbish of the lane, one amber eye split from the other, the beard a dozen sharp chips. There was a silence in which we could hear the squeal of distant billycarts. Rick’s voice was at the end of its tether. Go on, cry, then , he said, but I did not. I got plenty more , I said, and tried to shrug, though I knew nothing would ever equal that goat.
    Andy began to pick his nose and Gary could suddenly have been alone in the lane as he bent to peer at a wheel of his billycart and smear a little black grease that was leaking out of a vital part. Kevin was squatting, piecing together the beard as if it could be whole again. Rick’s shadow lay alone on the dust. But his eyes grew narrow as he turned to John, who stood beside me holding his satchel tight. It was you, Johnny. Wasn’t it? With a toe he recalled Kevin and Gary, and Rick had a gang again as he said, Fatso girls don’t get things. It musta been you, Johnny. John shook and shook his head until the glasses slipped down his nose and he had to let the satchel go to push them up, and I heard myself grow shrill as I screamed, It was me, I was the one. But Rick with a hand in my chest pushed me back and with all his old swagger said, Couldn’t be you, Lil, its man’s work, see. The gang crowded John like mates but he was puny between them and knew what was coming. Come on, Johnny, tell us where you got it , they said, and crowded closer. For a moment Rick’s father was with us in the lane as Rick winked in a man-to-man way. Come on, John, she’s only ya batty fat sister. Tell us. John looked as though he would have liked to start polishing his glasses or being deaf, but he could only go on standing. In Rick’s hand, my brother’s shoulder was like paper.
    It was me , I continued to shriek, even after Kevin had been ordered to sit on me. It was me! I tried to stop them when they took John’s glasses away and began to poke at him, but they all ignored me, even Kevin, who sat harder on my back and forced my nose to inhale the dust. Tell